A rapid transit station with a dramatic prow shape at the north end would be a centerpiece of the new Cedar Hill station, according to a proposal by Los Angeles architect Mehrdad Yazdani.

Infrastructure, that clunky word for bridges, highways and mass transit, is about to become a very hot topic. President-elect Barack Obama has said he wants to unleash a flood of federal dollars to jump-start a sputtering economy and fix the crumbling bones and arteries of American cities after decades of neglect.

The question is whether the money will be spent on projects that are smart, well-designed and well-positioned to boost local economies over the long haul.

The Greater Cleveland Regional Transit Authority has a new example of what smart infrastructure planning might look like. It's a plan for a $10 million bus and rail transfer station in University Circle.

Designed by Los Angeles architect Mehrdad Yazdani, who specializes in designs for mass transit, it's shaping up as an example of how infrastructure projects can approach the level of art.

There are lessons here all around, for anyone who cares about saving places like Cleveland from a death spiral of shrinkage and decay.

The project will replace a decrepit rapid transit station and bus transfer center at the intersection of Cedar Glen and Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd. in University Circle with a park, bike trails and a new transfer station.

Today, the intersection is one of the busiest and ugliest in the city. It's also highly visible because it functions as a gateway to University Circle, the city's burgeoning hub of medicine, education and the arts.

As you enter the area by driving west (and downhill) on Cedar Glen or MLK, you pass under a railroad bridge and enter a vast, confusing intersection dominated by an asphalt-paved bus transfer lot edged with flimsy-looking canopies for waiting riders.

Built a century ago as a trolley loop, the bus lot is an eyesore -- and a powerful, if unintended, statement that mass transit is a second-class way to travel. The associated rapid transit station has a malfunctioning chairlift for wheelchairs and a tunnel that floods.

The Yazdani plan calls for a new transit terminal for bus and rapid rail riders on the north side of Cedar Glen with a large, terraced, public plaza in front.

The terminal would have an angled, sloping roof, covered with greenery, which would make it look from some angles like a hillside.

Yazdani Studio/Cannon Design

Plans for a new Cedar Hill bus and rapid transit station call for a large, glassy building with a green roof and a public plaza facing south to Cedar Glen.

A glassy new rail station, with a platform atop the overhead tracks that bridge Cedar Glen from north to south, would culminate in a dramatic prow pointing north toward the Case Western Reserve University campus.

Among other things, the design means that thousands of pedestrians, including hundreds of students arriving for classes at nearby John Hay High School, wouldn't have to cross Cedar Glen or MLK to get to class. They would be safer and more comfortable.

The Yazdani plan, which still awaits final approval, would also sweep away the transfer station on the south side of Cedar Glen and replace it with a park that would function as an extension of the city's larger Rockefeller Park.

The reclaimed park, which has yet to be designed in detail, would be part of a larger effort coordinated by the nonprofit agency ParkWorks to revitalize Rockefeller Park and improve the health of Doan Brook, the urban stream that runs from Shaker Heights to Lake Erie through University Circle.

When you can scrape away an eyesore, improve the environment for pedestrians, strengthen mass transit and expand green space in a city, that's smart planning.

Clevelanders tend to be cynical about whether such visions will become reality. But the RTA station is real, backed by $10 million in committed federal money.

City officials will review a preliminary design in January or February, and construction will begin in 2010 and finish by 2012, said Maribeth Feke, RTA's director of programming and planning.

The agency started out two years ago with a completely different vision that called for replacing the bus transfer lot with an office building built atop a new bus station. But within the past year, the agency had an "a-ha" moment.

It realized that neither CWRU nor other neighboring institutions thought it would be a good idea to build an office on a triangle of land surrounded by elevated railroad tracks and two extremely busy traffic arteries. Instead, the agency came up with the idea of letting the old trolley loop revert to parkland.

RTA's thinking about the Cedar Hill project was enhanced significantly by the Cleveland Foundation, which raised $1 million from University Circle institutions to elevate design standards for public infrastructure in the district.

Absent such funding, agencies such as RTA would have little room under standard procedures to think more broadly. Now, however, thanks to the foundation's efforts, the Cedar Hill project is well on the way toward design excellence.

"The money enabled us to look more broadly and incorporate a whole planning process that we normally couldn't," Feke said. "Because this is a crucial gateway, we wanted an iconic piece of architecture."

The lesson, which ought to be underscored, is that relatively modest amounts of private money, applied wisely, can vastly enhance the power of public agencies to raise the level of design when it comes to public infrastructure.

The lesson is being applied elsewhere in University Circle by the Cleveland Foundation and its institutional partners. Upcoming examples include the design of a new rapid transit station along Mayfield Road in Little Italy and the replacement of the traffic circle at MLK and East 105th Street with a streamlined new intersection.

The infrastructure improvements, coming in the midst of a stunning and rapid downturn in the economy, are signs of hope at a dark time. They're also a reminder that when it comes to planning important civic investments, Cleveland has the smarts to do things right.

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